hammer what?? floppy bird??.angle actions'? im so confused fromwatching the Rockets all season i only know 4 moves, iso, drive to basket and post up and a 3. You mean to tell me theres actually plays to help other players score??
Did Morey actually say that? Look, I get that the guy would want to spin the first round loss in a positive way to deflect criticism, but if he actually believes that, this organization is in deep trouble.
Top 5 scoring player, top 3 defensive player, yet, defense is terrible and offense is predictable. Its on the coach.
The Blazers really didn't have that great a series defending the Rockets. The Rockets just defended the Blazers equally badly. The Spurs actually managed to defend the Blazers and that's the difference.
LOL, i'm laughing that they still think they shut the Rockets down, and in particular, Lopez stopped Howard down low, and that's how they won. In Game 6 in the 4th period, Howard scored 11 of his 26 points in the final 7 minutes. Portland won because they hit a three pointer at the buzzer. Portland won the rest of the games because they outscored the Rockets. Houston's offensive rating 115.6 Portland's offensive rating 115.3 San Antonio's offensive rating 113.1 Portland's offensive rating 99.2 It doesn't take a Cray supercomputer to figure out what changed between the two series - it wasn't Portland's defense, which allowed both Houston and San Antonio to exceed their offensive output from the regular season, despite the Rockets not really firing on all cylinders.
Yeah, people hammering at the lack of offensive sets in that series are pretty clueless. We scored at will. What we didn't do was defend. You take away 2 more buckets away from Portland in every game and we practically sweep them. If you wanna imitate something that SA does look at their defense. Their offense is something that has been perfected over the better part of two decades (and it's executed by a core of veteran players not the coach).
All I know is the Blazer's better make a move in the off-season before they play us again, because all this sucker talk is gonna make us wanna trounce them.
pretty sure LMA would have an easier time guarding parsons than parsons would guarding LMA. LMA would drop 80 on parsons and parsons maybe hits a few 3s with LMA sagging off him to defend the drive.
It's annoying how the blazers view our series like it was a cake walk. Like they did to us what the spurs did to them. The annoying thing about our early exit was that the 50/50 calls favored the blazers, and it cost us at least two games with a "my bad" for the league the day after.
why is that annoying? compared to playing the spurs, who won convincingly against the blazers, the rockets ARE a cakewalk. in all of the games, it was close. spurs won by a decent margin for every game.
The blazers got their asses kicked on defense against Houston, with a sleepwalking Harden for a few games, as much or more so than they did against San Antonio, as has been pointed out a number of times. That's why it's incongruous for htem to pretend like their defense somehow lapsed/became less effective against San Antonio - it was just as sh-tty as it was against Houston.
We scored plenty, in fact more than the Blazer in total points in the series. The problem is not only that we didn't defend, we lose lead due to scoring drought (to be fair, drought caused by ISO) as well, especially in the 4th. And while we scored, we shot poorly. We shot 45% (compare to 47% in regular season). From 3, we shot 32% (compare to 36% in regular season). A large part of that is Harden poor performance. So, to said our offense set was fine.. no, it was not. It was also part of the problem, not as big as defense, but it wasn't fine. The 4Q ISO definitely isn't fine.
It appears that several posters did not bother to even evaluate the impact of SA's offense and how they tired and beat up on Lillard offensively.. Lillard On San Antonio's Offense... “Their screens hurt. They actually set real screens,” Lillard told Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com. “They do a great job of setting and holding screens. It wears you down. Chasing Tony Parker is one thing. Getting hit every single time is another thing. It takes a toll on you.” “It makes you tired. When you’re tired from chasing him (Parker) around down there, it’s tough to come down on the offensive end and get much done when you’re wore down. It’s hard. I’ve got to do a better job at avoiding screens. That’s a challenge that we’re all going to have to accept.” Lillard On San Antonio's Defense SAN ANTONIO — It's not like Damian Lillard would have needed much time. According to readily available recent evidence, if the Trail Blazers' point guard is given all of, say, 0.9 seconds to slip free, he's capable of finding and hitting an open jump shot. But in Portland's 116-92 loss in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals at the AT&T Center on Tuesday, the Spurs refused to allow him even consecutive unmolested eye-blinks. When he eyed the rim from the top of the key, Tony Parker was there. When Parker was on the bench, Patty Mills refused to leave Lillard's personal space. And every time Lillard came off a screen, he was greeted by Kawhi Leonard or Tiago Splitter or Boris Diaw. “They were scrambling all over,” Lillard said of the Spurs' defenders. “There weren't a lot of free and easy buckets out there.” Matthews On San Antonio... "It's the little things that win," Matthews said, when asked what he'll take away from the Spurs. "It's the hustle stats, it's the rebounds, it's the sustaining of energy and edge for 48 minutes. There's no let up. Every time we let up, they made us pay. And I don't know how much that is them being on a hot streak, or how much is us, but they made us pay. Every time." LMA on the Spurs... "The biggest thing that we have to understand about this team is that they never stop playing. If you guar their first option, they’re going to have a second option. If you guard the second option, they’ve got a third option. That’s one of the biggest things I’ve learned about this team. They’re persistent. They’re not going to change, they’re going to run their stuff over and over and over and wait for you to mess up and once you mess up, they make you pay. Tonight they did that. They ran their offense and we tried to cheat something, and they get a backdoor. We give up an offensive rebound and they make a big three. They’re just consistent. They play championship basketball and that’s what we have to get to.” Point Guard - Tony Parker on Pop resting him the last month. "Pop, you have to give him credit. He looked at the big picture, and rested me (the last month)," Parker said. "When we started the playoffs, he told me 'Be ready to play 37-38 minutes a game, we're going to need you to play at your best.' And so far it's working." On his team ... On The Team: “The team is doing a great job for me. They’re setting great picks for me and they’re getting me open, so I have to give a lot of credit to my teammates. At the same time, you’re right, I’ve got my energy back so I feel good.”
Can I just say that the Rockets spoiled the Trailblazers for their second round series with the Spurs? They're sure talking like they're flat out spoiled, period when they make such comparisons IMO.
Or some posters just buy into the Blazers' excuses unquestionably. "Oh the screens were so hard! I got an owwie!". Please. The numbers tell a different story.
